Friday, April 16, 2004

That FOX Quality

I love beating the yankees. I'm trying to come up with a comparison to this feeling. "Christmas morning" just doesn't come close...

I know it's April, but still...

It's always the best kind of win. Any year, any month. All my life. Just the way I was raised I guess.

You'd think FOX could've shown a little more of the new aspects of Fenway. Like maybe a better look at the RF Roof seats, or some underneath-the-stands action. But no. Of course, McCarver told us about the Titanic sinking stealing the headlines over Fenway's opening in 1912. They can't seem to get enough of that one.

Here was McCarver's big mistake, though: When they showed the graphic of Red Sox 7th Game heartbreaks over the years, MacCarver read them all, and then said, "Five in a row." Terrible job, Grandpa Timmy. How about Game 6 of the '86 ALCS? We won that one. I'm not saying the graphic was wrong, I'm pretty sure it was just showing all the Game 7s the Sox have lost. But McCarver acted like it was some kind of streak, like we just can't win a Game 7. What a moron. He actually did seem a little less senile tonight than last season.

Actually, he also made a mistake on the Manny HR-that-wasn't, when, on the first replay, in which you couldn't possibly see where the ball landed (although I knew it hit off the wall on the live shot), McCarver says, "It's a homerun." Only to be proven wrong on the next replay. About that play, I wish they hadn't botched that call, because Sheffield, who is a disgrace to Def Leppard's hometown of Sheffield, England, had no intention of chasing down that ball, (in much the way Knoblauch wouldn't have) and I would've liked to see Manny get an inside-the-parker.

I also didn't like how McCarver called Manny's dropped ball a "la-tee-da" play. He was looking it in to the glove, he just missed it. And McCarver just gets all over him, strictly based on Manny's nonchalance of the past, and not on the play that had just happened.

Wasn't that funny when A-Rod was out at first, but called safe, only to get caught stealing third with the tying run at the plate? And then the two genius announcers with their "I'm not surprised A-Rod isn't hitting, what with all the pressure..." BULL S**T. And "Who are they gonna boo more, Jeter or A-Rod?" Come on, now. Think, FOX.

And of course, as I should've known, we've got a new member of the "Damon's hair is slowing him down" club. And like everyone else in the club, Joe Buck acted like he was the first to think of this silly notion. (You know, in high school, I was the fastest player on the team, and I was the only one with long hair.) Who'll be the next to join the club? My money's on Sterling. Remember, though, you can't get in to the club unless you PRETEND you're first to think of it, so get your speech printed up now Sterling, so you don't mess it up on the air.

At some point in the mid-'90s, I was at Fenway with some friends for a yankee game, and when the Sox got the second out in the ninth, I stood up. My friend, a yankee fan, said, "You don't stand up with two outs, you stand up with two outs and two STRIKES." The rest of the crowd also started to stand up as I said to him, "This is the yankees." I was reminded of that tonight, as I stood up (I admit it, I'm an at-home stander) when the second out was recorded in the top of the ninth. And I watched as the Fenway fans also got up. Awesome.

Magic Number PLUMMETS to 153...

I'm up early tomorrow for my FIRST Fenway trip (that goes all the way there) of 2004.

[Edit from January 9th, 2005: I meant to say Game SEVEN of the '86 ALCS up in paragraph five. Funny how I was making fun of someone being stupid, and then I made a stupid mistake.]